sense and sensibility
by tragicomedy
Summary: 'Why are you still crying' / 'Why aren't you' Twenty things about the Kurosaki twins  only some are between them because even twins keep secrets from each other .


**One.**

Masaki and Isshin were fawning, each holding one twin. Ichigo was scowling.

"They look like giant screaming walnuts." he muttered.

Isshin karate-chopped him on the head…

… and almost dropped Karin in the process.

Masaki yelled at him.

Karin howled.

Yuzu bawled.

Ichigo cried out in pain.

And Isshin couldn't hear the voices in his head anymore... but he wouldn't have had it any other way.

* * *

**Two.**

Isshin and Masaki stand in the doorway, watching the twins sleep.

"I think Yuzu takes more after you." he whispers to her.

"Does that mean Karin will take after you?"

"Hah!" he snickers. "That'd probably be her worst nightmare!"

* * *

**Three.**

Like yin and yang, day and night, Yuzu and Karin were so different in personality and appearance. People never guessed that they were sisters, let alone twins.

* * *

**Four.**

Just because they were twin sisters didn't mean they always got along, nor did it mean they were best friends.

They were, though.

(Most of the time, anyway.)

* * *

**Five.**

Karin never wore dresses. It was a fact.

But Masaki begged her, just once, to wear this _one_ dress she had bought for her and Yuzu to match.

Karin put it on and she stood there as her mother and father took picture after picture of her and Yuzu, her legs feeling too naked all the while.

She's sure that her father will use those pictures for blackmail one day.

* * *

**Six.**

When Masaki entered the room, Yuzu was in tears and Karin, pouting, was clinging onto a doll.

"K-Karin-chan won't give me my doll!"

"It's not _your_ doll. Grandma gave it to _me_." Karin shot at her sister.

"It is _too_ my doll!"

Masaki went over to Karin and touched her on the shoulder. "It's okay to let Yuzu play with her for a little while, right?" Masaki whispered before she spotted Ichigo's soccer ball. "Hey, Karin, why don't you play soccer with Ichigo, hmm?"

Karin stared at the ball. Both sisters loved any time with their older brother… and Yuzu would _have_ to play with the doll after all the fuss she kicked up…

"Okay!" she smiled brightly, sticking her tongue out at Yuzu once their mother's back was turned.

* * *

**Seven.**

Yuzu felt the need to study hard and do well in school. Not really because her family wanted her to do well (Masaki and Isshin didn't believe in pressuring their kids into anything, after all).

She thinks that, maybe, it's because Karin is _thesportyone_. And, as twins, she has to be _thebrainyone_.

* * *

**Eight.**

The twins had been playing in the puddles that night. A laughing Isshin watched on, thinking that Masaki and Ichigo would be back soon to jump with them.

When Ichigo came home alone, crying and covered in blood, the Kurosaki family was shattered.

No one jumped in the puddles anymore.

* * *

**Nine.**

Karin caught Yuzu curled up in bed one night, tears staining the pillow. It had been a month since Masaki had died.

"Why are you _still_ crying?" Karin asked. Yuzu looked up, tear tracks on her face, eyes red and swollen.

"Why aren't _you_?" she replied coldly.

* * *

**Ten.**

Yuzu had a knack for housework. Karin… didn't.

Not that she didn't try.

But the first time she made rice, it came out burnt.

And it wasn't like it was _her_ fault the soup exploded all over the kitchen.

While cleaning up the mess, Yuzu said, "It's alright, I don't mind the cooking."

That might've been true, but Karin minded her doing it.

* * *

**Eleven.**

When Yuzu was in one of her _moods_, Karin once said that she couldn't believe that Yuzu was the elder twin.

"Well," Yuzu replied huffily through tears, "at least _I_ can fry eggs without burning them!"

They don't speak for a week.

* * *

**Twelve.**

Karin couldn't leave Yuzu alone for even a minute. After _one_ minute, some boys had come along and stolen her entire Halloween stash.

Karin went and got it back for her, gaining a couple of bruises on the way.

But Yuzu's smile made it worth it.

(Plus some of her chocolates. Hey, what were sisters for?)

* * *

**Thirteen.**

Karin had broken her leg once. School mini-hike and she'd had a bad fall.

Yuzu was sure it hurt like hell. Karin, holding back tears (_why can't she let herself cry even now?_), was practically chewing through her lip.

Yuzu held her hand and wiped her fringe away from her forehead glistening with sweat.

She wished she could take the hurt away, too, just like Karin did for her.

* * *

**Fourteen.**

Yuzu, Ichigo and Isshin sat in the stands for Karin's first soccer game. Just a little neighbourhood friendly, but Karin hadn't stopped talking about it for weeks.

Karin's team won and amidst all the cheers, Yuzu focused on Karin, surrounded by happy team mates.

And while she was happy for her twin, she'd never felt more alone.

* * *

**Fifteen.**

Yuzu got her first love letter left on her desk at the tender age of ten. While the other girls gathered around her, Karin stomped over to the boys to play soccer and wondered if this was how it felt to get left behind.

* * *

**Sixteen.**

The night the seemingly invisible monster attacked, Karin's first instinct was _protect Yuzu_.

After she had gotten away, Yuzu's first instinct was _get to Onii-chan... have to save Karin-chan!_

* * *

**Seventeen.**

"Hey, where do you get all the lollies from?" Karin asked, forming her words around a lollipop.

"You know the other Karakura Red? Jinta-kun? I buy them from him. A whole big bag for only 500 yen!"

Karin grinned. _So that's how it was._

She went over to her piggy bank, pulled out 500 yen and handed it to Yuzu.

"Next time, get more Coke bottle lollies. And if he asks, tell him it's for you."

* * *

**Eighteen.**

Karin first spotted Ichigo with Orihime one afternoon mid-winter. They weren't holding hands or talking or anything.

But she knew.

And while she was happy for him because he deserved everything that he got, she was worried.

Because Yuzu still hadn't managed to let him go.

(And also because of what that idiot goat-beard was going to say when he found out.)

* * *

**Nineteen.**

When Yuzu and Karin first saw Rukia together with their brother, Karin had warned her to let him go. She hadn't then, and she hadn't now.

But when she saw him holding hands with Orihime, she felt maybe he'd leave her behind before she'd have the chance to let him go.

* * *

**Twenty.**

They stood shoulder to shoulder at their mother's grave. Already another year had passed and it killed to know, to _realise_, that she hadn't experienced it together with them.

Yuzu, head bowed and shoulders shaking with silent tears, whispered her message to their mother.

Karin, on this one day of the year, wished she could be like Yuzu – just let go and cry.

Instead, she took Yuzu by the hand and held her while she cried.


End file.
